


Last Words

by cadkitten



Category: D'espairsRay, THE MICRO HEAD 4N'S
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dystopia, M/M, Magical Tattoos, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-13
Updated: 2015-06-13
Packaged: 2018-04-04 05:49:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4127371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In a world where there are three kinds of people, Shun finds himself on one side of it that is both a gift and a curse. Knowing the last words his soulmate will ever speak is both gratifying and cruel; punishment and gift.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Words

**Author's Note:**

> For jrockyaoi Summer 2015 Contest. This AU was inspired by a tumblr post about the "what if" situation of everyone having their soulmate's last words tattooed upon them.   
> Beta Readers: sakura_ame  
> Song[s]: "ain't afraid to die" by Dir en grey

Rain whipped across the street, the roll of thunder rumbling across the landscape. Shun ducked his head against the onslaught of water, tucking in on himself a bit more. He wasn't soaking wet, his jacket taking care of that. But if he'd been a few seconds later on pulling up his hood, he imagined he would have been. His breath puffed out clouds of steam on the air, cold setting in earlier and earlier every year; summer no longer what it once was. Moving under the eaves of one of the buildings along the street, he paused long enough to wipe the water from his face and then continue along his way.

His watch beeped and he glanced down at the screen, seeing another White Alert go out world-wide. Only those who were considered The Given were allowed such a watch. He'd had one since he turned five; this exact one, actually. Most people traded up from their childhood devices, finding the neon yellow and white watches to be horribly unfashionable by the time they hit their teenage years. But Shun had never been one to take fashion the same way everyone else did. Sure, he cared about it, but his sense of it was horribly skewed from most others. Neon colors suited him just fine, even now, at the age of thirty-one, he found that the watch was still a great part of every outfit he put together.

Finding a streetlight, he paused beneath it, reading the words across the screen. _For me, this is-_ and that's all there was; a cut off portion of a sentence. He winced as he thought about how the person who had been graced with the words across their forearm must feel. Had they met the one who had spoken them before death or had they missed out on ever knowing the person? He sighed as he pulled his jacket back down to protect the watch from the rain and trudged onward as the wind picked up to the point of howling.

When he'd first had the words appear across his skin, he'd thought for sure it was the biggest curse the universe could have offered him. Even at the tender age of five, he'd thought he had known how horrible it was to have the universe share such a thing with him. The last words of his soulmate, scrawled right there across his arm. What a joke. Not the first ones they'd hear or something utterly useful like that. No, nothing could have been that _nice_ about it. Instead, upon the last seconds of his soulmates life, he would find out that he'd lost the one person he could have been truly happy with.

Turning the corner, he paused and fished out his keys, stepping into the doorway of the building and inserting the little computer-chipped key into the slot and waiting on the beep to verify. Once it had, he pressed his thumb against the pad and then pushed the door open. He shut it behind himself and pressed his palm against the scanner embedded in the wall. Green light flashed behind his palm and the secondary door opened with a hiss, the pressure seal broken between this area and his home. Hanging up his jacket, he stepped out of his shoes and then into the small entry area where he waited until the hydraulics hissed again as the door shut. He took a few good lungfuls of the clean air in here and instantly felt a bit clearer of mind. 

It had been a good ten years since they'd had to install such things into their homes here in Japan. A few other countries had done so as well; basically anywhere with severe overcrowding. The air outside was dirty and thin and the recommended time between leaving places that were sealed was no more than an hour with a maximum of three hours outside per day and that was pushing it. No more parks, no more nature walks... but society had flourished with the same abandon as it always had. Clubs and restaurants and fast food joints alongside gyms and all the same things he remembered from his childhood. Only they'd irreparably killed part of the natural balance of things and this was how they had to live now. Oxygen pumped in from tanks you personally paid for as a part of your rent or homeownership. Sealed environments and rain that stank like the dickens when it actually happened.

Shivering, he padded down the small plastic runner to his bathroom, stripping off and carefully peeling off his watch, setting it on the counter before he stepped into the shower and softly murmured, "Twenty-eight degrees Celsius, massaging jets. Black Onyx scent." Within a few seconds the water began to flow and he picked up his cloth to carefully start washing down, turning around in the small area as he made fast, efficient work of it. Lather began pouring out after he was damp and he coated himself with it head to toe, eyes shut against it until he felt the water coming back out again. He rinsed his hair and face first, and then the rest of his body in the two minutes he was allowed before everything automatically shut off. Slicking out his pink-tipped hair, he stepped back out and dropped the rag on the floor to take care of later. Carefully, he dried off and then fluffed up his hair, peering at the blonde and pink shock of it in the mirror and shaking his head. He'd have to re-dye it soon and that was always a displeasure. No more doing it at home since their water supplies were under regulation and there wasn't enough of it to wash out such things properly. Nope, it'd be nearly three day's pay to get it done professionally. If he didn't think he looked strange without it, he wouldn't be bothered anymore, honestly. 

Stepping out of the bathroom, he padded down the hallway and into his bedroom, finding a pair of navy cotton pants and a black tank top with a shockingly pink logo splashed across the front of it advertising some band long-since broken up. Tugging them on, he went back to grab his watch, fastening it on and checking yet another alert. _I'm sorry, Gina._ Well, that one was specific, wasn't it? Who was Gina? Had they been on their death bed and were apologizing for leaving or maybe they'd done something horrible and Gina had killed them for it and in their last breath, they were repenting for their actions. There were a million made-up stories between the probable and the possible. 

Absently, he rubbed his hand across his own words. _That's the mystery, isn't it?_ Such strange words... stranger than most he'd ever seen on one of The Given. He'd imagined thousands of scenarios that would lead to those words being spoken as the last ones before death. A million paths and he had no idea which one of them would come to fruition or if it would be something he'd never imagined at all.

Settling down on his couch, he turned on the TV and absently flipped to a game show in which everyone was doing their best to catch various objects that were thrown or accelerated toward them from mid-air. He remembered the good old days of game shows, in which people would display their talents for a panel of judges or show off how much information they had trapped in their brains for money. He sighed, tilting his head back and letting his neck pop before he pushed one leg out and touched the button on his coffee table, summoning the voice of the workers in the building's kitchen. "What's for dinner tonight?" he asked once he'd been greeted.

"Stuffed mushrooms and rice pilaf." He wrinkled his nose and then quietly inquired, "Is _he_ here tonight?"

The girl on the other end breathed out a soft laugh. "Of course, it's Thursday."

"Then I'll be having stuffed mushrooms and rice pilaf tonight." He started to push the button again, but the girl's voice stopped him.

"Eventually you're just going to have to stop ordering our shitty creations and tell him, you know."

"Like you haven't already?" Mika was a good girl and he liked her well enough, but he also knew she was a bit of a gossip, right along with Paulo. The pair of them were brother and sister and they never managed to keep a secret between the as far as Shun had been able to tell in the five years he'd lived here. She lived right above him and Paulo on the other side of the complex and they'd worked in the kitchens for all of that time. But Shun had heard - and overheard - more than his share of random information from forgotten speaker buttons and the random assortment of information that passed through that kitchen.

"You know I didn't." She lowered her voice again. "Sometimes I do keep things to myself, darling." She made a kissing noise and then, "You'll have your food in ten... and I'm sending him home for the night directly from your place. Just... do something about it this time." The speaker clicked off on her side and he huffed out a laugh, turning his own off with his toe before curling back up.

Nearly fifteen minutes later, he heard the beep that indicated he had a visitor. Standing up, he made his way to the viewing panel and instantly hit the button below to unlock the outer door. The wind was blowing things nearly down the street outside and poor Tuskasa was standing there, looking like he was about to be blown away right along with them, clutching Shun's meal and his work bag. The instant the door was open, the younger man darted inside and slammed the door shut behind him, the secondary panel showing he'd shut it. Once he had, Shun lightly pressed on the door and it hissed as it opened. He reached out and took the food from him, setting it on the small table he kept there for exactly this reason. He stared at the other's drenched form for a few seconds and then stepped back, finding that the weather provided him more nerve than he'd ever managed before. "Ditch the shoes and jacket and come in. You can't go back out in that."

Tsukasa peered at him and then sighed, removing his bag and then hanging up his jacket and stepping out of his sandals. He shivered and picked his bag back up, moving past Shun into the apartment. "I'm sorry to intrude."

Shun stared at him and then huffed out a laugh. "I'm sorry it took the storm of the century to get me to invite you in."

They studied one another for a few seconds and then Tsukasa's lips curved upwards. "After all this time... we talk every time _and_ we've only had coffee what... nine times? Just now I get to see your place."

"I'm slow, what can I tell you?"

Tsukasa picked up the food and then walked into the tiny kitchen area, stepping on the trashcan's lid-up button and dumping the contents into it. "Do _not_ eat that. Trust me." He settled his bag on the counter and began to pull out piping hot containers from an Italian place about a block away. "I made a pit stop."

Shun watched him in some amount of shock, his arms crossed over his chest as he watched the containers come out and the delicious smell fill the apartment. "Did you plan this?" he asked, amusement evident in his voice.

"No. I was going to save the leftovers for tomorrow. But it's enough for two people." He flashed Shun a grin. "For taking me in off the drenched street... and because I was super late with your meal."

"I was wondering... but wasn't going to say anything." 

"I could have been an hour late and you'd have just looked at me worriedly, you dork." He plopped servings onto the two paper plates he'd pulled from the bag as well and then served them up. "Utensils and drinks perhaps?"

Shun moved then, pulling out two forks and then a container of green tea from the fridge along with two glasses. Once they were seated across from one another, he actually studied the other man a bit more closely. He was wearing a tank top for the first time since Shun had met him. The front was low cut and the sides of it slit in a trendy cut-up sort of way. Between the slats of it, he could see the curling intricate lines of a tattoo that marked him as one of The Told. Whereas he had been graced - or perhaps cursed - with the words of his soulmate, Tsukasa's kind had been marked by the government once they'd found the gene that was shared among all of those who were the pairs to The Givens. Not everyone held this ability and they'd left it so that The Told could hide it away from the general public, whereas The Given were on display unless they wore long-sleeved shirts to cover it all the time and denied themselves the watches that came with the supposed gift.

These people... they were the other half, the completion of someone's soul. And everyone else was free of such bindings, utterly without the ropes that came with such a station... but also without the means to ever have an actual soulmate. It was both freeing and cruel. Gone were the dreams of those who thought they could be someone's soulmate and born were the shackles for those who had no choice in the matter. 

As if to accentuate his line of thought, his watch provided three alerts in quick succession. It was a busy night for The Told to be dying it seemed. Usually they'd get three or four alerts all day, but today had been utterly filled. Nearly thirty by his count so far. He checked and none of them were his own words as they scrolled past. Settling again, he picked up his fork and began to eat, realizing just how hungry he was the instant the first bite went into his mouth. "This is great, thank you."

Tsukasa shoveled another bite of the pasta into his mouth and then wiped his mouth with one of the paper napkins from Shun's table dispenser. He settled back in his chair, eyes flicking down to Shun's arm and then back up. "What does it say?"

He held out his arm and let the other read it for himself, watching the surprise settle in across his face and then chuckling. "Yeah, it's... interesting."

The younger man nodded, picking up the tea and pouring some for himself. After a few gulps of it, he shifted and pulled up the side of his shirt, showing the whole intricate tattoo of swirls and lines that had been placed there far earlier in his life. It was supposed to represent the life-pattern of the one you were attached to. Some nonsense that had long-since been disproved, but was still worn by an entire generation before it had been disproven. A whole subset of The Told that had been shuttled into believing there was a way to find the other half of their soul if only the The Givens were analyzed and their life-patterns poured out into some crazy map. Only it didn't work. Proven soulmates had been tested upon the death of The Told and nothing had matched. At first, they'd thought perhaps there were multiples and it had been broadcast to find out, searching for the same words world-wide. But none had come. The specific nature of the phrases made it hard to duplicate anything and only rarely did a few people have the same words.

"It's gorgeous. At least it's not the tags they have now," Shun offered, a smile on his lips as he studied the pattern, imagining a world in which it hadn't been disproven and perhaps it was his own life-pattern displayed there. He thought that, perhaps, it would have been novel to have found himself tangled within the lines on another's skin. Breathing out a quiet sigh, he shook his head. "Those that died before it was a lie... that had to be a huge amount of hope to have had all their lives."

"Or a giant burden," Tsukasa returned. "The eternal search. Think about it... what if they had found their soulmate and their last words proved it. But they didn't think they were all along because their life-pattern didn't match. How sad would that be?"

A small smile slid across Shun's lips as he pushed his plate away and stood up to start putting away the meager leftovers. "Speaker of my own pessimism."

Laughter filled the kitchen as Tsukasa made his way over with his own leftovers, adding them in and then tossing the plates and placing the forks in the cleansing slot for later. He slid his arms around Shun's middle and on impulse, the older man leaned back into his touch. Relaxation slipped through him in an instant and he could nearly feel everything clicking into place as he rested there in strong arms, his eyes closed against the harsh light of reality. So this was what it felt like... to find yourself in the arms of such a lovely person. Something tugged at his heart and even as he reached his hand back to twine it in Tsukasa's hair, he knew he was hopelessly lost. So swift, like a current of long-past rivers, trying to tug him into the murky depths. Or, perhaps, more like the storm that raged outside his door. 

Fingers splayed over his chest and the embrace tightened. "Do you feel it, too?" came the near-breathless question.

His own hand came down to cover Tsukasa's own. "Yes." He squeezed and huffed out a shocked-sounding laugh. "I've never... not like this."

Tsukasa pulled himself away and within a second, Shun was clinging to the counter, his chest wrenching in agonizing pain. Tears sprang to his eyes and he lurched toward Tsukasa, gathering him into his arms in near-blinding panic. Every ounce of the negative feelings released him a second later and their shared fearful-sounding breaths were the only sound in the apartment for a while.

Finally, Shun managed to back up just enough to see Tsukasa, confusion written across his face. "What is this?"

Swallowing, Tsukasa reached to run his fingers over Shun's arm. Their eyes locked and he whispered, "That's the mystery, isn't it?"


End file.
